Federal relief had improved access to child care. But when funding expired, the state rejected proposals to replace it. Some advocates say the historical influence of the LDS church has added to the resistance.
Utah is “family friendly” in the “your kids will never see a boob and your husband will never come home drunk” sort of way (even that isn’t true), not a “your kids will grow up happy and healthy even if you’re poor” sort of way. This should not be surprising since it’s a Republican state run by a bunch of religious nuts.
Wife and I moved to UT for work a few years ago. Haven’t made many friends because left no room for misunderstanding about our stance on their state church, but the ones we do like have shared some pretty unsettling stories. We had already spent several years living in one theocracy before moving here, but the deceit, narcissism, and self righteousness here is just incredibly next level. State services like food stamps keep getting whittled away so that people in need can be redirected to the church’s “welfare”, but then the church strongarms the needy into becoming church members before they can receive much. It’s disgusting. Almost as disgusting as when the church applauded the legal decision to protect clergy-“client” confidentiality after it came out that a church member was diddling kids and their church leader did absolutely nothing. So…I mean maybe they ARE kinda family friendly, but in the very worst way?
Religious conservatives and child abuse, name a more iconic duo.
Religious conservatives and fascism. Religious conservatives and bigotry.
When the GOP says “family friendly” what they mean is heterosexual white male friendly. Anyone else can be discriminated against, harassed, abused, denied protection under the law, denied medical care, and left to survive without food or housing. The only other class that has special rights are unborn children, who lose that status the instant they are born.
This. They mean “find one of us to start a family of you want us to be friendly.”
Utah is “family friendly” in a sort of “Focus on the Family” way that I really don’t vibe with.
